This action/empowerment/spiritual film’s title, “Divine Protector-Master Salt Begins,” might conjure up a chiseled super hero. Instead, Master Salt is a petite young woman, played by Rin Kijima, who dispenses stern advice about the righteous path while punishing abusers, the greedy and other offenders.
Directed by Hiroshi Akabane from a story by Ryuho Okawa, in Japanese with English subtitles, the film centers on a trio of Tokyo schoolgirls who are part of the “occult research club.” One member, Nanako (Saya Fukunaga), is suffering from mysterious bruises on her neck and other strange phenomena so the girls summon Master Salt by drawing a pentagon and a circle with salt and burning a sealed envelope with a written wish. Master Salt appears in a swirling tornado to musical accompaniment (“She is coming, coming, coming/She is here, here, here”). The manifestation clearly increased Master Salt’s appetite. She orders a bowl of udon noodles which the girls promptly deliver. Then she tells Nanako that she is being tormented by a “living ghost.”
That turns out to be a jealous classmate. Invoking “Buddhism and shintoism,” Master Salt commands her to repent. But this “Mean Girls” scenario doesn’t spare Nanako who Master Salt also criticizes for her insensitivity before telling the trio to call again if they need her.
The first summoning takes place on the seventh day of the month at 7:07. Ten days later, at the same time, Master Salt is summoned because the grandmother of one of the girls has lost all her money to a greedy scammer. He is promptly annihilated, in a blizzard of cheesy visual effects and music, followed by Master Salt’s dispensing with two other offenders: a violent husband and a “blasphemous” university professor. Finally, the arrogant CEO in waiting of a major company who has sexually harassed some 30 women is swiftly punished “in name of Buddha.”
The three young girls are left happily empowered with life lessons. Master Salt may appear an unlikely super hero but when she unleashes her laser light and commands “repel, return and protect,” she sure seems to earn her title of “The Divine Protector.”
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